The thoughts of Michael Cadwallader. Coffee loving, history book reading, Cheshire man.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

MPs' Day of Shame

Ian Dale has a list of the MPs who voted for the 'opt-out' to the Freedom of Information Act. Most of them were Labour MPs, some of them even government Ministers. That is quite amazing considering that the Labour government stated a couple of years ago:

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 reflects a national policy shift in public administration from a culture of confidentiality to a one of openness.The Act allows anyone the right of access generally to all types of recorded information held by a public authority, subject to certain limited exemption. The right of access to information is far wider than that currently enjoyed under any Code of Openness.

But, hey, as soon as their own expenses were opened-up to the lumpenproletariat, they've suddenly lost interest in 'a culture of openess'.

The source of the bill was the Conservative Party's David Maclean. He is quoted in the Daily Mail - and this is not a joke - as saying:

Mr Maclean claims the move would prevent correspondance from falling into the hands of "criminals or the BNP".

Ahh yes, the nasty, bogeyman BNP once again. If you have no idea how to dfend your scandalous attempts to deny the public information on your overblown expense claims, bring up 'racists'. I wonder, Mr Maclean, how exactly will the BNP use the FOI act? And, in what way would their usage of the act be construed as being 'wrong'? Perhaps Mr Maclean could furnish us proles with an explanation, but given his lack of love for openess, I'm not holding my breath.